Music Is Power with Alina Ibragimova at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh (The Guardian)

The Scottish Ensembles’s default setting is flux and dynamism: that’s the mission of this string orchestra, and it makes for nimble conversations within the group. So it was a thrill to hear what happened when they were joined by Alina Ibragimova – a violinist of uncompromising focus and intensity who made the sparring go deeper, quieter, fiercer. Ibragimova is a chamber musician as well as a soloist, acutely attentive to group texture and counterpoint, but there was no question who was in control. She didn’t so much invite as command their attention, and ours.

The programme was billed as “Music is Power”, a loose theme through works variously banned, self-censored, emphatically spiritual or plain joyous. A pair of early Mendelssohn string symphonies (the sixth and 10th) were delivered as pithy, boisterous dramas, full of light, shade and bravado. Arvo Pärt’s Silouan’s Song and Pēteris Vasks’s Viatore sounded flinty and serene: the holy minimalism thing can feel tokenistic when plonked into a concert as if to provide a quick hit of transcendence, but this performance didn’t overstoke the meaningfulness.

Ibragimova’s two concertos came as a release and a focal point. Hartmann’s Concerto Funèbre was before the interval — a second world war score she recorded a decade ago and which she plays as a ferocious elegy, every phrase urgent and personal. To close, she gave an exuberantly huge-boned account of Bach’s E major concerto. I’ve never heard it sound so fun and so fiery.